Shustoke Reservoir lies two miles east of Coleshill on the B4114 Coleshill to Furnace End Road, south of the River Bourne. At 1.5km west to east, the main pool is only 400m at its widest point. The River Bourne feeds the smaller eastern pool (8 acres), the water is then transferred to the main reservoir (92 acres). Disturbance at weekends can be a problem.

Friday, 28 April 2017

Wednesday 26th April

Spent the morning at Shustoke where from the car park I could see there were c.30 Common Tern, there were c.600s hirundines with the majority Swallows, before I finished for the day I upped the estimate to closer to 1000.

I hadn’t walked far before I came across my first White Wagtail at Shustoke for a few years, bizarrely it was with a Meadow Pipit. I continued round but it was quiet with very few birds singing, but it was rather cold which was probably a contributing factor.

I decided to check out farmland on the other side of the railway and a recently ploughed field yielded two fine Wheatear and a Stoat came dancing along the road towards me apparently unaware of my presence before heading into the undergrowth.

I have a new site on the outskirts of Curdworth which looks promising it is the footpath that runs towards Water Orton through the old Sewage beds, it is very overgrown but is good for warblers and I would imagine it will be good in the Autumn. It is a large area, but unfortunately access is limited to the footpath so you are only going to see a fraction of what is available but so far I have heard/seen 3 Willow Warbler, 2 Whitethroat, 5 Chiffchaff, 8 Blackcap and 1 Garden Warbler. The best bird so far was a rather brief Cuckoo which disappeared from sight over the bank never to be seen again.

Yesterday in a brief visit to Wishaw I saw a further 2 Wheatear but was driven back by the rain.